Are you tired of the same old warmers, games and activities? This is the place to be! This blog displays a collection of top creative ideas taken from the best sites and sources to spice up your classes and involve your students in fun activities dealing with different skills and grammar topics. Welcome aboard!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Here is an idea for a simple idea that can be used as a speaking or writing activity. Moreover, it`s a great opportunity to break the ice and promote some interaction in class.

Level: intermediate or upper

Skills: speaking or writing

Materials needed: none

Instructions:

Ask students to think of a word that best represents their last weekend. Have students write the word on their notebook or just say it out loud. Students sit in groups or pair up with a classmate and explain why they picked that word.

Variations:

a)Students can think of words that best represent their : day, last vacation,mother,personality, work, country,etc.

b)Instead of sitting in groups to talk about their words, students can write a short paragraph.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Here is a nice idea to build up rapport in class by discussing what they know and remember about their classmates.

Level: any

Skills: writing, speaking and listening

Material needed: slips of paper

Instructions:

Before class write the name of each student on a slip of paper. In class, give each student a slip and make sure the student doesn`t get the slip with his/her own name. Explain to the students that they are going to have 5 minutes to write down up to 5 things they remember about that person. Collect the slips, read them aloud and ask students to guess who that student is. As a follow up, you can ask students to sit in pairs or in groups and talk a bit more about the information in their slips.

Vânia Rodrigues has been an EFL teacher for 22 years, 17 of which at a Binational Center in Brazil, Casa Thomas Jefferson. She has been a teacher, a Course Supervisor and is currently a Deputy Academic Coordinator at CTJ. She holds an M.A in Applied Linguistics from the Universidade de Brasília. Her main interest relates to nonverbal teacher-student communication.

Vinicius Lemos has been an English teacher for 17 years. He holds a B.A in Letras-Inglês (English Language and Literature) from Universidade de Brasília (UnB) and has been an EFL teacher at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, Brazil, for 11 years. He was a presenter at the 2010 TESOL Conference in Boston, USA ,at the 2011 ABS International Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay,at the 2012 TESOL Conference in Philadelphia ,USA and at the 2013 TESOL Conference in Dallas, USA.

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